by John Creasey
She went downstairs, stark naked because it was so warm. The storm had lasted over a day, and wind cut along the street and hissed in at a top window which was not curtained off. She saw rain and heard it spattering as she put on the kettle. There was no sign of Lionel, and uneasily she thought that the storm must have kept him away. She wasn’t exactly frightened then, just uneasy, and it wasn’t until she was in the bath that she admitted the truth to herself.
Whenever Lionel got in very late, or whenever his normal morning routine was disturbed, he was likely to get vicious. That wasn’t always the case, but it very often was. She tidied the kitchen quickly, put the breakfast things ready, and hurried upstairs, in case he came back soon. He would expect everything to be exactly as he liked it; if the breakfast wasn’t ready except for cooking bacon and eggs, he was liable to start knocking her about. She wondered whether she should have her bath, decided to risk it, bathed very quickly in tepid water, and then hurried to the bathroom, putting on her bra as she went. Twenty minutes after waking, she was downstairs again, making the tea. Now that she was fully awake she realised how violent the storm had been; like Lionel’s temper.
At nine o’clock, she was too hungry to wait any longer. She cooked her own breakfast, and dawdled over it. She felt better then, and began to tell herself what she would do if he started to get violent. She often had these rehearsals beforehand, imagining what she would say, how she would hit him back; but in fact he always terrified her the moment he raised his voice.
It was half past nine when she had finished, and she went to the front door to bring the milk in. As she did so, a gust of wind nearly pulled the door out of her grasp, and rain splashed over her face. She snatched up the milk, backed into the narrow hallway with it, and tried to close the door, but the wind made it difficult, and it wouldn’t latch. When at last she closed it, she was breathing hard. To make the situation worse, she had put the milk on the floor behind her and as she turned round she knocked it over; milk spilled out in a huge river and a big pool. In vexation, she stamped in it and made matters worse by splashing the walls. She scurried along to the kitchen for a floorcloth, and was on her knees, swabbing up the mess, when the door began to open.
On the instant, she was terrified; if Lionel came in and caught her doing this, there was no telling what he would do. He couldn’t have come at a worse moment. She knelt transfixed, floorcloth in hand and dripping milk, and staring up as the door banged back.
It wasn’t Lionel.
It was a man she had never seen before, a youthful-looking man, his plastic raincoat streaming with water, his cloth cap dripping, his brown shoes oozing. He tried to slam the door, but it blew back in his face. He had to struggle with it, as Ruth had, and surprise helped her to relax, even to get angry. What did he mean, opening the door with a key and bursting in like this? She got to her feet, and dripped the milk-soaked cloth into the pail. When he closed the door and turned round, she was facing him.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you doing with a key to my door?”
He didn’t answer at once.
In a way, he was quite good-looking, although he was too fat. The wind had whipped colour to his cheek, and his eyes were clear, too; honey brown in colour. He was half smiling, half sneering; Ruth had a vague feeling now that she had seen him before somewhere, but couldn’t be sure.
“Go on, answer me! When my husband comes back—”
“Forget it, Ruth,” said the man. “Li won’t be back, you’ve got to get used to the idea. He won’t be back. He’s gone on a long, long journey. I want a little talk with you about him?”
“What do you mean?” she managed to gasp. “What do you mean, he won’t come back? Of course he’ll come back. He never—”
“Ruth,” said the stranger, “he’s had trouble. You could have a lot of trouble, too. Don’t make any mistake about that. Where does he keep his books and papers—his betting slips, that kind of thing?”
“In—in the living-room. But what—”
“Lead the way,” the stranger ordered, and he moved nearer and took her wrist in a firm grip, then twisted her round so that she went ahead of him. As the man pushed her towards the living-room, she knew fear much greater than the fear which possessed her when her husband went berserk. He glanced round, holding her arm up behind her, not hurting but making it obvious that he could hurt at any moment. He stood looking round at the spotless tablecloth, the table ready for Lionel’s breakfast, the range of domestic luxuries just visible in the converted wash-house beyond. The man looked round, then took off the raincoat and his cap. He handed them to her.
“Let these drip, baby.”
“Look here, I want to know—”
“I told you, Ruth,” said the man, “Lionel’s had trouble and you can run into plenty of it if you’re not careful. Just do what I tell you.”
She took the coat and cap into the kitchen, and hung them behind a door. When she got back into the room, the man was standing over the little writing bureau where Lionel kept all his papers.
“Got a key?” the man demanded.
“No, and if I had I wouldn’t let you have—” Ruth began,
and then stopped, catching her breath; for the stranger turned round and looked at her in a way which frightened her just as much as Lionel ever had.
He said: “Where’s the key?”
“I—I haven’t got one, Lionel never let me have one! He told me to keep away from that desk, it was private. I—I don’t know where a key is.”
“You’re telling me you’ve never opened it when he’s been out?”
“Of course I haven’t! Lionel would have had the skin off my back if he—if he’d thought I’d do a thing like that!” She was beginning to fight for breath.
“That’s good,” said the man. “That’s very satisfactory. If that’s true it might help you a lot.”
She didn’t ask him what he meant, just stood gasping for breath. He took out a big pocket knife, opened a blade, and began to work on the lock. She had heard about locks being picked, but had never seen it done before. In about three minutes there was a loud click, and the middle drawer opened. The man pulled out the other drawers, too, and then opened his case and put most of the papers from Lionel’s desk into it. She began to utter a protest; he just turned round and looked at her. When the desk was empty of everything except one bundle of papers, a few sheets of notepaper, pens and pencils and ink and blotting paper, he closed it again and turned round and stared at her. Her fear rose to shrieking point.
“Ruth,” he said, “I’ve got bad news for you. Lionel’s dead. He got mixed up with the police, and he was on the run. He was okay while he was free from the cops, but if they’d caught him he would have squealed, so some old pals of his sent him on that long journey.”
“Li—Lionel dead,” she echoed weakly.
She was startled, not yet shocked, and in a peculiar, guilty way, relieved. Lionel dead. For a moment she felt quite light-hearted. The implications of what the man was saying did not seem important at first, except the one positive statement.
“Now listen to me,” the man went on. “Lionel had a bit put away, four or five thousand quid, judging from these papers.” He tapped the documents which he had left behind. “Did a bit of good work on the gee-gees, he knew form all right. Very smart, Lionel was. And you’re his next of kin and only heir, so that means you get all the money. And you get this house and all that goes with it.”
She was thinking: “Yes, he’s right, I get everything.” Lionel had no relations except some uncles and aunts he hadn’t seen for years, and they would have no claim. She was rich!
“So if you do what you’re told, you’ll be sitting pretty,” the man said. “How much did Lionel tell you about his business?”
“Nothing, I tell you!”
He put his head on one side.
“Don’t start lying to me, Ruth.”
“But I’m not lying. I asked him about it once, I as
ked him where he spent all his time, and—and he lammed into me, I was black and blue all over. I didn’t dare to ask him any more, and I didn’t dare try to look at that desk, either. If he was working at it, I had to be in the kitchen or in the front room or upstairs, he used to make me stay out. Sometimes he’d even send me to the pictures when he was very busy.”
“Well, that’s fine,” said the stranger, and his smile looked very bright and satisfied. “That’s what he always told us, that he didn’t let you know anything about what he did. And you still don’t know anything, do you?” He paused; it seemed for a long time. He moved, slowly, and came towards her. His smile remained, but it was stiff and mirthless; suddenly she was in even greater terror. The man stretched out his hands towards her, and she backed away, knocked against a chair, and fell back on to it. The chair rocked but did not fall. She couldn’t get further away, just put up her hands to try to fend him off, but she knew that she would be so helpless against him as she was against Lionel.
“Ruthie,” he said very softly, “five thousand pounds, this little house, and a nice quiet peaceful life—how do you like the look of it?”
“It—it sounds wonderful.”
“Wonderful,” the man said. “That’s about right. You can give yourself a good time. You can eat, drink, be merry, and sleep with who you like—if you do what you’re told. If you don’t, you’ll be buried with poor old Lionel.”
“Don’t talk like that!”
“Listen to me,” the man said again, and now he leaned forward and took her wrists, holding them firmly. “The police will catch up with this house soon—perhaps this morning, perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow. They’ll come and ask you a lot of questions. They’ll want to know all you can tell them about Lionel and his pals, and his work. If you don’t know anything you can’t tell them anything, can you?”
“I swear I don’t know anything!”
“Ruthie, if Lionel ever told you a thing, forget it. Just tell the police what you’ve told me. If you tell them anything that will help them to find Lionel’s pals—”
“But I don’t know any of his pals!”
“If you don’t, you can’t name them and you can’t come to any harm,” said the stranger. “Don’t tell the police I came, either. Don’t tell them a thing. If you do, I’ll find out. Rather than let the cops cut you up in the witness box, I’d cut your throat. Don’t make any mistake, Ruthie.”
“I swear I can’t tell them anything,” she gabbled, brokenly. “How can I tell them what I don’t know?”
“Okay, Ruthie,” the man said. “But don’t make any mistake. If I find out that you’ve told them anything—”
He drew his finger across his throat.
In a telephone kiosk, twenty minutes later, the man said smoothly:
“She doesn’t know a thing, there’s no need to worry about her. . . . Listen, Shell, I had to find out. . . . I could tell whether she was lying or not. Now be yourself. She’s got to live until she’s got her hands on Lionel’s dough. It won’t take long to separate her from it, and after that. . . . I tell you she’s too scared to talk to the cops. They’re not going to weep about Li, anyway, they’ll be glad he’s gone. Leaving Ruthie until I can cash in is playing it smart. . . . Listen, Shell, there isn’t a thing more to worry about, but we must lay off for a few weeks. We can afford to. Get some more ideas, maybe. . . . Yes, I know I’m the ideas man: give me a chance, I’m as anxious to get further into the big money as you are. Don’t worry, Shell.”
He rang off a few moments later, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and stepped out of the kiosk into the bluster of the warm summer storm.
At Brasher’s Row, Ruth Endicott sat and waited.
It was evening before the dreaded moment arrived, and the police car stopped outside the door. She was in the bedroom, sitting at the window; she had been there much of the day. She knew that the important thing was to make the police think she knew nothing about Lionel’s death, but she didn’t know whether she would be able to hold out. If she didn’t, she believed that the stranger would carry out his threat.
VII
LYING WIFE?
THE woman was scared when Roger arrived; there was no doubt about that. The problem was to decide what she was scared about. She was rather small, rather plump, with an incredibly tiny waist and what his sons would call a dreamboat figure. She wore a cotton dress high at the neck, which seemed to mock at modesty because of the bulge below it. She was fair-haired, and had nice china blue eyes and a beautifully smooth complexion. On the back of her left hand was an ugly scar, about two inches long. The little house was spotless, and furnished in a way which very few people who lived in Brasher’s Row could afford. Roger tried to make up his mind the best way to approach Endicott’s widow, and decided, as often in the past, that he would have to shock her, perhaps cruelly, to loosen her tongue.
“I don’t understand. I don’t know what you’re doing here,” she said, running the words into one another. “My husband hasn’t got into trouble, has he?”
“Why should you think he has?” demanded Roger.
“I didn’t say that, but what else can I think, with you coming up here, and him being away all day? What’s the matter? What’s happened?” She caught her breath, and then her eyes seemed to light up and she went on with a rush: “He hasn’t met with an accident, has he?”
Roger said: “A kind of accident. He was murdered early this morning.”
“Murdered!”
She brought the word out explosively, as if astounded, but that didn’t get rid of the brightness in her eyes. That convinced Roger that she knew the truth already, and that something he had said had pleased her. He began questioning her, slowly and deliberately, but as the minutes slipped by he realised that she was much tougher than she looked.
She swore that she hadn’t known where her husband had been all night; that she knew nothing about his business; that she knew none of his friends. She said that he had occasionally been out all night, so she hadn’t been surprised this time. She admitted, almost as if it were against her will, that after he was out all night he often came back and gave her a very bad time; she said that was why she had been frightened when he, Roger, had arrived. That could even explain why her eyes had brightened at the prospect of her husband having met with an accident—and explain why she hadn’t been appalled at the news that he had been murdered.
For three hours, on and off, Roger questioned her; and she gave the same answers. She didn’t know where her husband went, what he did for a living, whom he worked with—he left her at home all the time, he didn’t mix business with pleasure. There was obviously a great deal of basic truth in all her answers, while neighbours corroborated much that she said. Three of these testified that they knew how Lionel had beaten her up from time to time.
Roger had a feeling of acute frustration when he left, at nearly ten o’clock that night. He felt sure that the girl was lying part of the time, that there was a great deal which she could tell him—but he had a feeling, too, that she would be able to maintain this steely resistance for as long as she wanted to.
She identified Lionel Endicott’s body, without showing much emotion; and the final moment came when she told Roger flatly that she couldn’t help it, she was glad her husband was dead.
“Now perhaps I’ll get a bit of peace,” she said.
“I don’t know what to make of it,” Roger said to Bellew, “but I’m going to have the Division watch her for a few weeks. If she’s under pressure, or if she’s playing any part in the racket, someone will contact her—if they haven’t already.”
“Daresay you’re right,” Bellew said. “I’ve checked Stone’s movements, by the way. A dozen witnesses would swear he was two miles away at the time of the murder.”
It was at half past two next morning that Roger pulled up outside the shop in Kemp Road, Clapham. The Stone delivery van was parked away from the corner, and some grocery orders were already piled up in carton
s inside.
The morning papers had carried the news of Endicott’s death, and the Echo especially had screeched delight because of the likeness between the artist’s drawing and the photograph of the murderer. But the smash-and-grab raid, as well as the discovery of two corpses chained back to back in a cellar in a derelict house, took most of the newspaper space. Casual references were made to Endicott’s being a gang killing, but only one newspaper referred to the possibility that the murder of Mrs. Stone might have repercussions. The general attitude was that Endicott had been paid for his crime with a kind of rough justice.
Old Mrs. Klein, wearing a starched white smock, was at the provisions counter, cutting up cheese with a wire. A thin, very plain girl with a hooked nose but a mop of the most lovely chestnut hair, was serving an elderly man with biscuits. The door of the shop leading to the living-room was open, and Stone appeared. He stopped short at sight of Roger.
“Will you come back here, please?” said Stone. He kept the door open, and Roger stepped over the patch where the blood and treacle had mixed, and then into the room, which looked exactly as it had when he had first seen it. Stone closed the door. He was wearing a khaki coat, obviously freshly washed and pressed. He was pale, but his face had a strong look about it. There was calmness in his eyes, too.
“I take it that you’ve seen the newspapers,” Roger said.
“Yes, Mr. West, I have.”
“We’re quite sure that the dead man was your wife’s murderer,” Roger said.
“I daresay you are, Mr. West.”
“I don’t want you to be in any doubt,” Roger went on, but he felt much the same as he had when he had talked to Endicott’s wife last night, frustrated, even a little angry. “I’ve brought photographs of Endicott’s head and shoulders from the back, and close-up of his face. And I’ve brought enlargements of the prints found in this room last Friday.” He opened his briefcase, took out the photographs, and spread them on the sideboard for Stone to examine. Stone looked at them all with close interest, and then said: